What Is Cloud Computing and How Do You Lower Costs?
What Is Cloud Computing?
Microsoft Azure offers a cloud computing definition: the delivery of computer services like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet.
“AWS started a revolution in 2006 by introducing its cloud computing services, completely disrupting the entrenched on-premise data center model, says Senior Director of Research, Craig Kennedy. “Shortly thereafter, major players like Microsoft, Google, and IBM saw the enormous potential of this new market and brought cloud offerings of their own to the market.”
Some of the major Cloud Service Providers (CSP) include:
- Equinix
- Oracle
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- IBM cloud
What Are the Different Types of Cloud Computing Models?
Enterprises have numerous options when it comes to selecting where to run their workloads:
- Public cloud
- Multi-cloud
- Hybrid cloud
- Edge computing
The most important decision for enterprises today is how to efficiently manage and optimize these workloads, no matter which clod computing option is selected.
What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing benefits include:
- Companies are able to offloading infrastructure management
- Pay as you go
- Faster Time
- Simple infrastructure management
- No hardware maintenance costs
- Reduction of IT costs
Cloud Computing – Promises Made and Promises Kept
Initially, the cloud promised it was:
- Scalable–yes, the cloud delivered scalability
- Easier to deploy–while it can be easier to deploy, it is important to remember that each cloud option requires a different skillset
- More secure–although it’s rare, there are security breaches on large public cloud infrastructures
- Cheaper–this is not always true as the costs can be very workload dependent
How to Cut Cloud Computing Costs?
With cloud computing mismanagement, it is easy to get that infamous sticker price shock. However, there is opportunity for saving on costs.
Areas for keeping cloud computing costs lower include remembering to incorporate Cloud Management Costs and using the Pricing calculator provided by all CSPs.
Cloud Deployment Options
Customers should remain flexible on deployment options:
Small Deployment Benefits
- No CapEx
- Pay as you go
- Rapid deployment
Large Deployment Benefits
- Amortization of infrastructure costs
- Amortization of management costs
However, cloud customers should be prepared to move workloads when necessary.
Moving a company from the public cloud to a private or hybrid cloud may make the most sense financially for companies just starting out.
This is where containers come in. Containers can add:
- Stable run time environment
- flexibility,
- smaller footprint (e.g., less resources leading to less costs)
- Ability to run workloads anywhere
- Leverage kubernetes for orchestration
- Easy to move within hybrid cloud
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